This damn motion sickness. Why did I overlook this? Despite my thorough preparations, I failed to prepare for motion sickness and ended up in a half-dead state inside the carriage.

Ah… I should have eaten nothing in the morning. Within 10 minutes of departure, I was trying to suppress the rising nausea as my face began to turn deathly pale.

Barely arriving at the rocky mountain, I staggered out of the carriage as if I might collapse at any moment. At least touching the unmoving ground made me feel a bit better.

However, being in poor condition, I could only stand on my own two feet after resting in the shade for quite a while.

Lily worried that I should rest more, but with even Sebastian monitoring me, I couldn’t just keep resting.

As long as Sebastian’s purpose was to monitor me, I had to show how passionate I was about the flower garden.

I gripped the trowel solemnly and looked at the scene before me. Rocks here, rocks there…

Looking at the vast mountain, I felt my mind going blank once again. To color this with flowers… I must have gone mad. Wow, there’s no greater waste of manpower than this.

Feeling like I had shot myself in the foot by getting carried away with the concept, I struck the ground with the trowel.

“Clang!”

Along with the clear sound, a tingling vibration stimulated my joints.

Argh…

I grabbed my joints while letting out a silent scream. Why are there so many rocks? And why is the sunlight so harsh?

As I wiped my sweat with the towel I had brought and looked around, the servants who had come along were busy leveling the ground with pickaxes and shovels.

Those people must be suffering because of their unfortunate master.

“Isn’t it hard for you?”

Sebastian, who had been leveling the ground with the servants on one side, approached me. Having taken off his usual jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, he had a well-maintained body.

Perhaps because of this, he looked much younger than his age despite being over middle-aged.

So this is what they call a handsome middle-aged man. Inwardly wiping my drool, I answered Sebastian’s question.

“It’s hard, but it’s something I want to do.”

It wasn’t entirely untrue. To be precise, it was closer to something I had to do, but anyway, I had to pretend to be crazy like this for Ilion to dislike me.

“Let me help you.”

Saying that, Sebastian dug the ground with a shovel next to me. After digging the ground to some extent, we would plant flower seeds, then move to another spot to dig and sow seeds.

“It hasn’t been long since you came to the Duke’s mansion, how are you finding it?”

He asked as we sowed flower seeds in the dug ground. Well, although the maids were cold and Ilion was nowhere to be seen, living there itself wasn’t much difficult.

Rather, if I didn’t know Ilion’s future, I would have wanted to settle down there, indulging in the comfort that money provides.

“Of course, it’s fine.”

“Is there anything you’re curious about?”

“Well, not particularly.”

As I answered with a bright smile, Sebastian also looked at me with a smile.

“How about wedding preparations?”

“I’m sure the Duke will handle it well.”

Although I wasn’t really interested since I’d be kicked out before the wedding, I answered out of courtesy. Then he looked at me questioningly.

“Aren’t you looking forward to the wedding?”

That’s unexpectedly sharp. Faced with this sudden probing question, I hurriedly answered with a smile.

“O-Of course I’m looking forward to it very much. But since I don’t know much… I thought it would be better if I didn’t interfere.”

I squeezed out an excuse to cover up my true feelings that had unconsciously slipped out due to the hard labor.

“I suppose it must be difficult for you too, since the master isn’t exactly an affectionate person.”

“Not affectionate is an understatement…”

I muttered softly while digging the ground. Not affectionate, what an adorable phrase. If it were me who only knew Ilion from the book, I would have fully agreed with this statement.

No, if it were me who once considered Ilion my favorite, I would have defended him, saying it was nonsense.

‘Ilion is the kindest man ever, a perfect gentleman. Even the Emperor is nothing compared to Ilion’s toenail. No arguments accepted.’

Something like that…

But the Ilion I’ve experienced as Ravenne… Yes, he could be called affectionate. If ‘affectionate’ was short for ‘Fortunately, no sudden murders have occurred.’

When facing Ilion, it feels like my lifespan is being worn away day by day…

“I apologize to you as well. It must have been an unwanted marriage for you.”

With my brain in pure mode, I hurriedly denied Sebastian’s words.

“Not at all. The Duke is such a wonderful person, isn’t he? To be able to marry someone like him, it’s like a dream!”

“Do you like the Duke?”

“Of course. I like him very much.”

Hearing my answer, he looked at me with a kind smile.

“Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease a little. Please don’t let those feelings change.”

“…Huh? Ah, yes! Of course not.”

Somehow feeling like I was deceiving a kind neighborhood grandfather, my mouth turned bitter as soon as I spoke. If Ilion commits treason, Sebastian will die too.

That crazy Emperor knows no mercy.

Even though it wasn’t something I could do anything about, my chest felt strangely tight.

‘No, it has nothing to do with me.’

I shook my head, trying to ignore it. For now, I should only think about saving my own life. When I can’t even guarantee my own future, I had no luxury to worry about others.

Once again steeling my resolve, I struck the ground with the trowel.

This time, along with the clang sound, there was a dull thud. With an uneasy heart, I gently pulled the trowel out of the ground, only to find that the handle part had snapped off.

“Gasp, no! Daisy!”

With tears in my eyes, I struggled to pull out the body part of Daisy from the dirt.

As I managed to extract the body part, trying desperately to save Daisy, a transparent stone popped out along with the trowel. It seemed this stone was the reason the trowel had broken.

That unlucky words became reality.

Recalling Ilion’s curse from the morning, I stared blankly at the broken trowel for a moment.

‘Ah, there’s nothing we can do about this…’

I called Lily cheerfully while throwing the stone behind my back.

“Lily! Let’s eat the snacks we brought!”

***

Knock knock.

The unwelcome visitor who comes every morning at a fixed time knocked on the door without fail today as well.

Knowing that if he didn’t answer, they would knock as though they wanted to break down the door, Ilion reluctantly gave permission to enter today as well.

“What is it this time… Ah, it’s you?”

“Did you think it was Lady Ravenne?”

Sebastian entered with a smile.

“By the way, Lady Ravenne is bedridden with muscle pain.”

“You don’t need to report such trivial matters.”

“I thought you might want to know.”

Ilion sighed as he looked at Sebastian, who was smiling slyly.

His reason for mentioning Ravenne’s condition without being asked was obvious, but Ilion had no intention of indulging Sebastian’s wishes.

“That’s not what you came to report, is it?”

“Ah, right. That’s true.”

It was a truly brazen response. As if he hadn’t come to talk about that from the beginning.

“As you instructed, I observed the young lady for a day yesterday, but there was nothing unusual. She just sowed flower seeds on the mountain and returned.”

Ilion fidgeted with his pen as he listened to Sebastian’s report. He recalled Ravenne’s face from yesterday morning when she came to his room, calling her trowel Daisy, smiling brightly.

‘I thought she might have some other scheme because she was saying such nonsensical things, but did she really just want to plant flowers?’

It was hard to believe, but understanding the thoughts of ladies like Ravenne was an impossible task for Ilion, even if he were to die and be reborn.

Unable to understand and empathize with such sentiments, he had no choice but to define Ravenne based on facts alone, excluding emotional aspects.

Ilion recalled Ravenne’s actions so far.

‘A woman who is poor at calculating money, easily deceived by others’ words, vain, and self-willed.’

For some reason, the more he thought about Ravenne, the more he wondered how he had agreed to marry such a woman.

It seemed he must have been thoroughly bewitched by something.

While Ilion was contemplating whether to call off the engagement even now, Sebastian placed something in front of him.

“However, we found this.”

It was a transparent stone. As Ilion picked up the fairly large and heavy stone to examine it, he asked Sebastian.

“…A magic stone?”

“Yes. It came from the land the young lady purchased. It seems that magic stones are buried in that land.”

A magic stone was an object imbued with mana that allowed even non-mages to use magic.

In the Empire where mages were rare, it was quite an expensive item, and if it was true that magic stones were buried in that land, the value of the land would skyrocket from at least tens of thousands of gold to hundreds of thousands of gold.

“Did Rischefeld buy that land knowing magic stones were buried there?”

“I’m not sure. The young lady didn’t seem to know what this stone was.”

Sebastian answered, recalling Ravenne’s behavior of treating the magic stone like a common pebble.

“Well, someone who says they’re going to plant flowers there probably wouldn’t have known…”

Ilion had the same thought. But it was somewhat unsettling to accept it as mere coincidence.

Isn’t this too lucky to be a coincidence? Even if a cow steps backward and catches a mouse, there’s a limit, but this was like catching a dragon instead of a mouse.

‘Even if it really was land she purchased without knowing anything…’

Ilion, who thought he could easily define Ravenne, was unexpectedly unable to reach a conclusion easily.

As he rolled the magic stone in his hand for a while, the concern on Ilion’s face deepened.

***

“Young lady, young lady!”

The day I had hoped wouldn’t come finally arrived. Lily shook me awake early in the morning, and I, unwilling to accept reality, deliberately ignored Lily’s voice and burrowed deeper into the blanket.

“Lily, let me sleep a little more.”

“What are you saying! Even if you start washing up and preparing now, you’ll be late! Get up quickly!”

“Lily, I think I’m sick. The party is…”

I tried to whine with the most pitiful expression I could muster, but Lily, with my fake illness apparenlty not working on her, yanked off the blanket.

“I think my muscle pain hasn’t healed yet, and my throat feels a bit sore too…”

“Yes, yes. I’ll listen to that story while you wash up.”

It’s not working at all. I feel like I’m becoming an icon of distrust these days…

Her eyes were shining so brightly, as if she had been waiting eagerly for this day to come. I was eventually extracted from the bed and ended up being placed in a bathtub filled with fragrant oils and flower petals.